Ever since he started his tumultuous journey back in 1997, Pokémon protagonist Ask Ketchum has been the epitome of modern employers’ wildest dreams; a ten-year-old with 25 years of experience? That’s not something you just pass up on.
And what a 25 years it was; with all the ups, downs, sidesteps, friends, rivals, and petrification-ending-tears that any good journey should have. And now, it looks like that journey has finally reached the end. With episode 1219 of Pokémon having aired in Japan earlier today, Ash has finally achieved World Champion status.
There are still a few more episodes to go in Pokémon Ultimate Journeys: The Series, no doubt serving as a small epilogue to Ash’s original journey finally coming to a close, but while this inevitable conclusion has brought joy to the inner children of Pokémon fans everywhere, not everybody is happy with the announcement.
Rather, not everybody is happy with Pokémon‘s official Twitter account posting what’s technically a spoiler for fans who only watch the show’s English dub, which, judging by the show’s seven-to-eight month delay between the release of the original Japanese episodes and their English-dubbed counterparts, won’t be around for a hot minute, to say the least.
Whether you’re in the camp of this anger being entirely justified or completely ridiculous, one struggles to imagine a world where Ash somehow didn’t become World Champion. Although, in fairness, the dub camp is behind by nearly 30 episodes, with the last batch of Ultimate Journey‘s dubbed edition (which is currently up to episode 1189 out of 1219 overall episodes in the Pokémon anime) having released on Oct. 21, so perhaps this is far more of a spoiler than non-dub devotees realize.